Exploitation is much closer than you think, and it can often start right on your child’s phone. We need to figure out how to better protect kids from sexual exploitation and sexually explicit materials on social media and the internet. I see it over and over again — unsuspecting kids become victims of sex trafficking or exploitation right from their phones, and their parents have no idea.
There are so many web services and products out there to help parents with digital safety, but so many are so difficult to implement and kids can learn how to get around the system. I would encourage parents to look honestly into their child’s activity and relationships online, have open conversations with them, and pursue tools to restrict and monitor their social media, internet activity, and online profiles.
As I did this work with police in Thailand, I began to imagine having a greater impact by training and equipping other people to do what I was doing — assisting police in fighting human trafficking crime. My wife Laura and I were talking one morning on our porch in Thailand, and we started dreaming of starting a nonprofit that could do this work with us.
Of course, at the time, we weren’t sure if a charity like this would work. Human trafficking is a complex field that’s often misunderstood. Gathering evidence of trafficking crime is a high risk, and we were working in corrupt environments. There was so much stacked against us. But, over time, we kept moving forward and courageous people started to help us. The exodus road Matt Parker as of 2021, has supported over 1,500 survivors in that walk towards freedom, and the numbers keep growing daily.